Chain Drug Review, June 3, 2019

TECHNOLOGY Tech Talk Using technology to power clinical programs By Ian Fallon These programs go a long way to keeping patients healthy grams are performing and how their performance changes over time Offering these programs to your patients goes a long way to keeping them healthy and it can also have a positive impact on your business if done correctly Many of the services offered are value adds and can be reimbursed for by the patients insurance carrier However you cant bill if you cant document what you did Programs like RelaysHealths RelayRx Medical Billing can check patient eligibility in real time document the clinical encounter and submit the medical claim all within workflow and within your existing pharmacy management system Investing in the right technology is really an investment in patient care Their health is your return on investment Ultimately McKesson is working to supply pharmacies with technology solutions to help their patients get the medications they need to live healthier lives Ian Fallon is vice president of clinical programs at McKesson Prescription Technology Solutions that show how your pro of McKesson Corp Creating buzz in the supply chain CHICAGO Technology is playing a big role in the supply chain and how important data is collected and shared One of the top companies in this area is SupplyHive Some of the largest and most sophisticated procurement money on suppliers and vendors than on anything Reporting on the performance of their vendors of businesses is critical to their organizations He says for example that one client measures the performance of its 200 most strategic suppliers every quarter They used to use spreadsheets very painful Because the data was so hard to track and measure in spreadsheets they still relied on word of mouth a lot Once SupplyHive was implemented two things happened One the amount of time needed to collect organize and measure this data went down by 90 saving an estimated 200000 of employee costs associated with time Suppliers who were thought of as average performers all of a sudden had data that showed they were excellent And vice versa Suppliers now have a specific set of action items driven by AI after each performance review If they implement the action items they are recognized and rewarded It creates great alignment he concludes Walmart announced that it has purchased the technology and assets of Silicon Valley based Polymorph Labs adding to its expanding ad business Walmart Media Group Walmart says the Polymorph acquisition helps the retail giant build enhanced targeting and measuring tools for both purchasing and delivering ads among other benefits www walmart com Forty six percent of retailers plan to deploy augmented reality AR or virtual reality VR solutions by 2020 but more than 60 of shoppers report they have yet to encounter the technologies in store according to a report from Periscope By McKinsey Fifty nine percent of U S consumers reported they would use either technology to better see a product in context and explore its functionality or suitability www periscopesolutions com Earlier this year Zebra Technologies Corp completed its acquisition of Temptime Corp a privately held developer and manufacturer of temperature monitoring solutions for missioncritical applications in the health care industry We are very excited to join Zebra and work together to advance our technology from visual to digital temperature indicators This will enable us to more quickly accelerate our innovation to benefit our customers said Renaat Van den Hooff president and chief executive officer of Temptime who is a key leader in the business integration www temptimecorp com Food Lion and five sister U S grocery chains are turning to artificial intelligence to overhaul the way they order food from suppliers The new system being rolled out at U S chains owned by Ahold Delhaize NV is intended to improve how buyers predict demand and get perishables and other products to store shelves faster The system built by supply chain software firm Relex Solutions was piloted last year at Aholds Food Lion and Hannaford chains and will be rolled out over the next three years across all six U S brands www aholddelhaize com What if you had to fill every prescription bottle and write out every prescription label by hand No pill counter No printer Thats what it would be like if you tried to run all your clinical programs across all locations manually Yet many pharmacies do A better way and one that can deliver better clinical results for your patients and better business results for your pharmacy is to use technology to run your clinical programs There are four primary categories of clinical programs that technology has the greatest impact on adherence medication management disease management and vaccinations Regardless of the type of program they all present the same challenge How do you operationalize them This is where the adoption of technology can help you seamlessly identify the patients who would benefit from the program communicate with them when appropriate document your interactions and bill their health plans for your services When most pharmacies start their clinical programs they try to do those four things manually They use pen and paper They print out and read through spreadsheets They try to use workarounds in their pharmacy management systems And they all struggle to make their programs work Without technology you cant uniformly execute and document your patient encounters across all locations And if your processes and documentation are inconsistent youre not able to measure the effectiveness of your programs Without that receiving payment from health plans is near impossible Further technology can help identify patients who are or may be at risk for nonadherence Software like the Adherence Performance Solution APS offered by McKesson ranks patients by their PDC or proportion of days covered to identify candidates for adherence programs Once identified there are a multitude of options available to address issues and help provide meaningful medication counseling sessions or offer clinical services such as vaccinations McKessons pharmacy workflow software builds these programs through its Clinical Programs Solution CPS software right into daily workflow making it possible to set up alerts in your pharmacy management software that notify you when one of these patients is at your counter so you can engage them at the point of service The next benefit of technology is documentation As your staff interacts with each patient they are documenting that interaction in the same way using the same fields to collect the same information and data With all that information and data collected regularly and uniformly you can create reports and supply chain organizations in the world have modernized their supplier performance process with SupplyHive Mike Anguiano chief executive officer of SupplyHive notes that the company is the No 1 rated software for supplier performance reviews We spent almost one year interviewing chief procurement and chief supply chain officers before we built one line of code We wanted to have a deep understanding of what they measure and why From qualitative to quantitative And most importantly what they would do with that data and how it could positively impact their organization Then we started building Now we have one of the most advanced and sophisticated technologies on the planet He adds that one requirement from all the companys clients is that it is easy Fast mobile and powered by AI artificial intelligence so we are not just collecting data we are analyzing it for you And telling you how the data predicts supplier risk Or supplier excellence Our typical client is up and running in a few weeks because we did so much work on the front end He says technology is definitely changing how products and services are tracked Not long ago it was paper on a clipboard Then came spreadsheets and Word docs Then came the big companies who developed the first generation or products Those are now aging out and a new group of well funded technology companies with brilliant engineers combined with retail industry experts are bringing the next generation of tech to the market Fast accurate mobile all powered by AI Best ofbreed technologies This is totally changing the game for retailers Anguiano says that Supply Hive is a perfect fit for the retail market For example we have one global retail client using SupplyHive to collect performance data on their most strategic non merchandise suppliers Consulting and IT firms construction advertising and marketing agencies and hundreds more These suppliers go through a quarterly business review to assess performance and also provide a 360 degree feedback assessment of their own performance This process creates a data driven approach to business alignment He explains that measuring performance of merchandise vendors is similar but more quantitative in nature Delivery times response times and all of the things critical to getting product on the shelf This information was captured in spreadsheets before SupplyHive So very manual and labor intensive no ability to scale no AI Now our clients are proactively measuring billions of dollars worth of spend and quantifying the impact of those suppliers The suppliers actually love it because it creates alignment between the buyer and seller Anguiano says the need for reporting on procurement is very critical Suppliers and vendors typically make up the single largest amount of spend at a retailer Think about that Large companies such as Walmart Walgreens and CVS spend more 40 Chain Drug Review June 3 2019

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